


Colourblind

by vala (valinorean)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Limbo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 02:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valinorean/pseuds/vala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his monochromatic world, a single red rose was all Eames had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colourblind

**Author's Note:**

> PROMPT from inception_kink: When Eames is killed third level, sedated, on another inception attempt, Arthur knows he's going to Limbo. He promises to come for him, tells him to hold that memory. Eames' last sight of him is the battered rose in his lapel.
> 
> In Limbo, Eames can only remember Arthur's words and the rose. So while he is waiting, he starts to plant a rose garden. It grows, and grows, and by the time Arthur gets to him, Limbo is a lush, endless garden. They are almost sorry to leave, but Arthur promises that they'll make a garden together in the real world.

 

Grey would always be the colour of blood. In his monochromatic world, with its brilliant grey sun shining in the bright grey sky above the deep grey sea, everything was perfect. Everything, except for his hands awash with the grey blood of his lover.

 

It began with a simple rose bush.

It was ugly and dying, and Eames couldn’t stand to look at something ugly and dying in such a desolate place. Especially when there was nothing else to look at. Or do. So he grabbed a watering can and filled it with water from a well and began to water the solitary bush.

He watered the dying bush everyday until it stopped looking like it was dying.

 

Then there were two rose bushes.

He watered the other bush too, because why the hell not? He had nothing to do anyway—until it became three, then four, then five. And Eames realized his mistake when the tenth bush made itself known and demanded that it be watered as well, and _then_ he had a lot to do. Except, there really wasn’t anything _else_ to do but water the demanding rose bushes. So Eames decided that he should have a small house nearby so he could tend to the rose garden easily. (And yes, he had to acknowledge that it _was_ indeed a garden by the seventeenth bush.)

The house, unfortunately, did not expand in the same way the garden had flourished. It began looking like a shack, but it didn’t turn into a small cottage, or a villa, or a castle like he was hoping it would. Days upon days upon days later, it still looked like a goddamn shack. A small and worn down shack in the middle of a garden with thirty-eight rose bushes and one well.

 

Sometimes Eames would not tend to the garden.

Sometimes he would sit idly on a bench that had appeared beside the eighty-seventh rose bush and admire how beautiful his grey garden had become. He had all kinds of roses—English roses, tea roses, albas, rugosas, cabbages, and even miniatures and patio climbers. He would think about his garden and how tedious it was to care for, especially with bush number forty-two refusing to be trimmed to match forty-three’s height, or how he really needed another well on the other side of his garden because it takes an entire morning just to get to one hundred and thirty-one and back again, or how ninety-seven kept intertwining with twenty-four just to deliberately block his path and how he’d have to go around fifty-one just to get to sixty-six.

And sometimes…sometimes Eames would sit on the bench and remember a voice.

_“Eames you asshole. Why did you do that? It was only a flesh wound.”_

But he wasn’t listening because he wanted to ask the owner of the voice how he kept the rose corsage still pinned neatly on his lapel while flying through the air, dodging bullets and kicking projections in the face.

 _“Hey, look at me._ Look at me. _I’ll come for you, okay? Remember that. I’ll come for you. Eames._ Eames! _”_

 

One day bush number one held a surprise.

It was a small red bud.

It was very _very_ tiny, insignificant really, and he wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn’t so special. In his monochromatic world, a small red rose bud appeared and he knew without a doubt that he’d love that rose more than all the flowers in his garden (and he knew he’d be playing favourites and two hundred and eighty-eight would resent him for it but _he didn’t care_ ). He promised that he’d watch it grow until it turned into a beautiful red rose one day.

Red.

Like the colour of a loaded die.

 

Eames tended the small red bud, watching as it quietly grew into a rose.

Sometimes he felt like the Little Prince with his beautiful flower (sans the haughty airs, of course) and he felt sorry for all the other flowers in his garden that no one loved.

To make amends, he allowed everyone—including the boisterous four hundred and thirty-seven whom nobody liked too much because his pollens are literally _everywhere_ , and even the timid seven hundred and six who refused to soak up the sunshine and _who does that really_ —to wander about and go wherever they pleased. He’d check on them from time to time and they’d surprise him by introducing him to a new rose bush, fifteen hundred and twelve, or to an old acquaintance, thirty-two hundred and eighty-two.

But he’d always return to his very first rosebush at the end of the day and admire how his favourite rose was doing.

 

One day the small red bud became a fully bloomed rose.

A single red rose in an eternity of grey.

It wasn’t as pretty as the others, Eames thought. It somehow looked…a little battered for something that was well taken care of. As if it was a forgotten rose on the lapel of…a suit. A suit that was dodging bullets and efficiently killing off projections one by one. Huh.

But still, it was beautiful and Eames loved the rose.

 

Eames came home one day to find the rose gone.

He’d been gone the entire day trying to break up a quarrel between a certain Japanese rose bush and bush number five hundred twenty-eight (who was allegedly trying to control the entire garden’s energy resource aka the sun) when he stumbled upon a peculiar boot print along the path behind his house. Strange, he thought, because he didn’t remember going to the back garden that morning. The last time he did was when he checked on his rose and… _oh_. He quickly ran towards where bush number one was and bent down quickly to check on his rose.

But his precious rose wasn’t there.

He searched frantically all over the garden and then beyond the garden, asking every bush he came across if they’d seen his red rose. But none of them had. Eames looked and looked for his rose until he eventually made his way to the very edge of his garden near the sea.

He was surprised at what he saw.

There by the shore was a man looking out to the vast grey ocean. Eames would have been surprised to see someone other than him in his world, but his eyes were trained to the man’s hand.

The hand that was holding his rose.

Eames ran furiously towards the man who had taken his rose from him, who had dared to _pluck_ the rose from his garden, and _oh god_ it would certainly die now that it was separated from the bush. He was going to punch the man’s face and take back his rose and maybe he could still graft his rose back into one of his rose bushes. Maybe his rose would still survive.

But the man turned as he approached and Eames’ step faltered.

He knew this man’s face. He knew this man.

“Mr Eames,” the man greeted.

“Arthur,” Eames whispered nearly to himself.

“I told you I’d come for you. Did you remember?”

 

Eames still wanted to punch Arthur because _his rose_.

However, he was taken by surprise when Arthur, looking behind Eames and surveying his vast grey garden, suddenly said, “It’s beautiful here, Eames.”

Eames blinked in surprise. Beautiful? But how could Arthur think that this world was beautiful? It was just…grey. _Everywhere._ The only thing beautiful in his world was his red rose, which was now in Arthur’s hand.

Arthur’s hand which…wasn't grey. Eames frowned.

In fact, Arthur was wearing a navy blue suit. A deep navy, pinstriped suit paired with a silver tie. And then he looked at himself and realised that the jumper he was wearing wasn’t actually grey, but a light shade of brown, and his denims were a faded shade of blue that had already gone nearly white.

“What—”

And Eames began to look around and he saw colour bleeding into his once grey world. The sun was now a brilliant and blinding yellow, against the bluest sky he had ever seen.

And with the colours came the sound of the ocean lapping gently along the shore, while gulls cry circling above them. Eames could even smell the salty waters mixed with a strong fragrance of...of something that should have been familiar. It was the scent of his roses. _Oh!_

Eames turned around, back to where he came from and finally, _oh finally_ he could see what Arthur meant. The colours continued to bleed inland and it was the strangest sight Eames had ever seen, with one half still the familiar dull grey garden he had tended each day, while the other a marvel coming to life. His garden was now filled with roses in all kinds of colour—deep reds, elegant whites, charming pinks, and lively yellows. And slowly, the dull grey patches became smaller and smaller until there were none left.

Delighted, he turned to reach out to Arthur, but stopped and paled when he saw his hands.

His hands were still stained red with the colour of Arthur’s blood.

 

“It’s nothing, see?”

Eames still wasn’t convinced, but he supposed that he’d have to trust Arthur on this one. Eames was leaning against the lip of the well where he had allowed Arthur to pull up a bucket of water and clean the bloodstain from his hands. They came away easily, as if they were as fresh as the day when he…when Arthur…

Eames shook his head. He refused to think about that day. He turned his hands front to back, inspecting them, but there were no traces of the red stain left.

“I’m sorry,” Eames said, not looking at Arthur.

Arthur sighed impatiently. “I told you it was an accident. I was fine, Eames. And the job wasn’t even botched.”

“But I still—”

“Don’t, okay?” Arthur said, leaning down to peer at Eames’ face. “These things happen. I was in the way and you accidentally shot me. So what? It’s not as if you’ve never put a bullet between my eyes before.”

“That’s different!” Eames protested.

“It really isn’t,” Arthur said and gave Eames a quelling look, daring him to contradict him further. “I’m really more annoyed with the fact that you think you had to step in front of a bullet for me.”

“I’m still sorry,” Eames insisted.

And Arthur must have heard something in his voice because he didn’t comment further and instead gently brushed his knuckle against Eames’ cheek before saying, “All right. Now shut up and let me enjoy this place before we head back up.”

And Eames did, looking around and seeing his once dull grey world though Arthur’s eyes. And his garden was infinitely more beautiful now and _why_ did they have to leave now?

“I don’t want to go,” Eames mourned.

Arthur turned to look at him, a small crease forming between his brows. “But we have to,” he said.

“But my garden,” Eames said, his hand waving to encompass the vast landscape. It would be such a waste if they leave, even if the small tug in his heart was telling him that Arthur was right.

“We’ll make another one, Eames,” Arthur promised, grabbing Eames’ wrist in an almost painful hold. “We’ll make another garden for you, but we have to go. We _can’t_ stay here.”

He ignored the rising agitation in Arthur’s voice. “But I made them for you,” Eames protested.

And Arthur’s face softened, one of his rare smiles gracing his lips. “I know, Eames. I know.”

That made all the difference.

And Eames realized it was okay to leave because now he knew that all his other flowers were loved, just as he loved his beautiful red rose. And it didn’t matter if his garden was here or wherever Arthur was taking him, because he knew that it would be infinitely better because this time Arthur would be with him.

“Okay,” Eames took a deep breath. “I want to go home, love.”

“Alright, take my hand.”

  
  
 _End_


End file.
